Project: Temple Dromos & City Center

While the famous Temple of Bastet has been the focus of research since Édouard Naville's excavations (1887-1889), its immediate surroundings, and especially its integration into the surrounding city, have received little attention. To gain further insights into this, the area in front of the temple’s entrance (Area A), once the endpoint of the Dromos leading from the city in the east to the Bastet Temple in the west, was archaeologically examined by the Tell Basta Project team. Our excavations revealed a dense development of tower and casemate buildings from the Late Period and Ptolemaic Period. Remains of the Dromos, paved with limestone and originally described by Herodotus (Hd. II, 138.1–4), were also discovered there. In Roman times, the area in front of the temple’s entrance was adapted into an open courtyard with a column set up as a monument. (Publ. No. 10, 22)